BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: VILLANOVA @ SOUTH FLORIDA

January 24, 2009


Villanova looks to climb back to .500 in conference play when they travel to South Florida for a noon tip-off on Saturday afternoon for a Big East match-up. The Wildcats are coming off a tough loss at Connecticut from earlier this week.

South Florida is 2-4 in conference play after completing a home and home sweep over DePaul. USF has never won more then three Big East games in a season since joining the conference, but will have 12 games left to see if they can find two more victories to surpass that previous mark. Unfortunately, the schedule makers did not give them more cracks at the Blue Demons.

Chris Howard Lights up the Sun Dome for the USF Bulls (St. Pete Times)
Bulls & Villanova Set for Noon on Saturday (gousfbulls.com)
Bulls Basketball Keeps Building Despite Losing (Tampa Tribune)
USF Loses Senior Center Ajayi to Knee Injury (St. Pete Times)

The Bulls have been showing some improvement of late. Although they won just once on a recent three-game conference road trip, an 80-58 demolishing of DePaul, USF hung pretty tough with Pittsburgh before losing 75-62 and made a valiant comeback at West Virginia before coming up short, 62-59. They returned home and finished off a sweep of DePaul with a 70-61 victory. Making the win more impressive was they did it without Jesus Verdejo, their second leading scorer.

USF has been getting consistently big scoring efforts from Dominique Jones. The sophomore shooting guard leads the team on the year in scoring (18.8/game), rebounds (4.9), assists (4.1) and steals (1.6). What is more impressive is in the last four games, Jones has averaged over 26 points a game as well as 5 assists and 7 rebounds. He has also been able to get to the line 39 times in his last three games.

Villanova junior guard Reggie Redding will have the assignment to stop Jones. Redding is a very good defensive player that will play the role of defensive stopper quite well. He will not worry about his own offense and will not let not scoring cause his concentration to lapse on the defensive side of the ball.

Also helping the Bulls show improvement has been the progression of freshman Augustus Gilchrist. The 6-foot-10 F/C is a tough match-up because he is very comfortable shooting from the perimeter. He recorded his first double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds in their last win over DePaul and also had a 22-point outing at Pittsburgh.

Villanova is a very balanced team with seven players averaging at least six points a game, led by senior Dante Cunningham who is averaging a team-high 16.7 points and 7.1 rebounds. Like Jones for USF, Cunningham leads ‘Nova in a variety of categories as he also leads the Wildcats in blocked shots (1.3/game) and steals (1.7). Junior guard Scottie Reynolds adds support offensively to Cunningham, averaging 15.2 points a game and leads the team with 4.1 assists a game. Reynolds is still the player likely to make the clutch shots for Jay Wright’s squad and has shown he is still capable of carrying the scoring load when needed, like his 40-point performance in an OT win at Seton Hall earlier.

The latest college basketball odds show Villanova to be a 6 1/2-point road favorite. It is a game to watch carefully, as it sits right in between UConn and Pitt for the Wildcats.


NBE Blogger Prediction:

Villanova 68
South Florida 64